1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to a system and method for building and managing a human network or a social network through a network, such as Internet, and, more particularly, to a system and method in which users can establish acquaintance relationship with various parties in various relationship levels through a network, set relationship indexes are reflected, a hidden user, which is worth as the shortest bridge when a new acquaintance relationship is established, are searched for and provided with information required for relationship establishment, so that not only a superficial optimal route, for which is searched through established acquaintance relationships, but also an potential optimal route, which may established through un-established acquaintance relationships, are effectively used, and relationships having low danger are established, thereby promoting the building of a more stable and effective on-line human network.
2. Description of Related Art
Networks, such as wired/wireless Internet, or Intranet, have been widely used as popularized communication means already, on the basis of which means, such as world wide webs, e-mails or messengers, which enable members of a society to share information to obtain knowledge, has been actively used.
Recently, Internet services which not only use networks as communication means but also enable the building of an on-line human network using the networks are actively provided. The human network refers to a virtual network, members of which are individuals having acquaintance relationship with each other through social life. The acquaintance relationship refers to the others which considerably share information, experience, ideal and belonging to a community with each other, thereby fairly putting confidence in each other. In a general social life, such acquaintance relationships are derived from previously determined acquaintance relationships, blood relationships and alumni relationships or regional relationships, or are established, when users belong to a specific community or perform a common affair through a company or a team, thereby knowing each other.
Recently, with the development and spread of networks, such as Internet, it is possible to establish and maintain such acquaintance relationships on line. Various service technologies which support the active building of such a human network between users, create a database based on the build human network, and enable searching for humans having desired ability and experience based on the database, new establishment of relationships with new acquaintances based on the on-line human network, expanding of each user's own human network based on the relationship, or sharing various files and information, are proposed.
In the building and management technologies of an on-line human network, according to the characteristic of a network, such as Internet accessible by unspecific users, to ensure the reliability of human relationship, to enable the building of a large area of human network and to minimize a vexatious procedure required to be provided with service are main goals for the technology development of a corresponding field.
A currently used system of building and managing the on-line human network includes the form of accessing a web server, such as a club or a community and being provided with service, and the form of installing a predetermined application program in a terminal and being provided with service while continuously communicating with a server.
In the conventional system of building and managing the on-line human network, it is general that a user requests the establishment of online relationship with another user, which accesses a network, through an means such as an e-mail, a messenger message or a pop-up message, and the another user, upon receipt of the request, responds to the same. According to the relationship of 1:1 between two users, established as described above, respective users are incorporated into an on-line human network built between the other users having the separate relationship of 1:1 with the respective uses.
When the incorporation into the on-line human network is completed, a desired human (for example, an alumnus or a human having a specific occupation) can be searched for among users (a first acquaintance relationship) which have relationship with each other, other users (a second acquaintance relationship) which have the first acquaintance relationship with the acquaintances, and still other users which continuously are connected to each other through them, and, therefore, the found user can be introduced or the establishment of a new acquaintance relationship can be requested.
FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a conventional human network search system 100. The illustrated human network search system 100 is constructed by including a database (DB)(10) and a search server 20. A user DB 12 and relationship information DB 14 are included in the database 10. The human network search system 100 is connected to a plurality of user terminals 310, 320, 330, and 340 via a network 200, such as wired/wireless Internet or Intranet. For convenience, only four user terminals are illustrated, and each of user terminals may be any one of various fixed or mobile terminals, such as a laptop, a desktop, a Personal Digital. Assistant (PDA) and a PCS.
A procedure of registering users is described below. First, a step A of registering a first user with the human network search system 100 through the first user's terminal 310 is performed, and a step B of registering a fourth user with the human network search system 100 through the fourth user's terminal 340 is separately performed. In the registration steps, the ID, password and personal information (occupation, gender, age, home address, office address, company name, educational history, hobby and the like) may be provided, and such user information is converted into a predetermined data structure which is stored in the user DB 12 and managed. At the time of registration and subscription (A, B) to services of each user, the human network search system 100 may download a predetermined application program which enable a user to easily use several functions provided from the search system in conjunction with the system, to be executed.
FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a step of establishing correspondence relationship (primary acquaintance relationship) between respective users in the conventional human network search system 100. In order to establish on-line primary acquaintance relationship between users, a step D in which the first user transmits an invitation message to the terminal 330 of a second user through the first user's terminal 310, and the fourth user checks this through the fourth user's terminal 340 and transmits an acceptance message may be performed.
Such an invitation message and an acceptance message may have various forms, such as e-mails, short messages or the like. The human network search system 100 recognizes that the invitation and approval steps are performed, and recodes the fact that a correspondence relationship between two users has been established in the relationship information DB 14 in a predetermined data structure at step E. At this time, the fourth user may be a user which is unregistered yet. In this case, a step of registering a user with the system through data transmission and reception with the human network search system 100 can be performed simultaneously with the transmission of the approval message for invitation.
FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a step of searching a human network in the conventional human network search system 100. When a request for setting a predetermined condition and searching the human network through the first user's terminal 310 is received at step H, the search server 20 of the system 100 reads data recorded in the user DB 12 and the relationship information DB 14, transforms the data, loads the data in a memory module, included in the search server 20, and performs searching using the loaded data.
FIG. 4 illustrates a data structures inside the user DB 12. As illustrated, user information, such as the name, age, occupation, or gender of a user, is corresponded to each user ID (Userid 1, 2, 3 or the like) and stored in the user DB 12.
FIG. 5 illustrates a data structures inside the relationship information DB 14. As illustrated, the IDs of users, in which the correspondence relationship (primary acquaintance relationship) are established, can be corresponded to each other with 1:1 and stored in the relationship information DB 14.
FIG. 6 illustrates a schematic diagram explaining the search space of an on-line human network. In the virtual search space of the human network, each user registered with a system is corresponding to each node (a, b, c, d, or e). Based on the correspondence relationship between users, links or edges are formed between the nodes of the search space. The formed search space can be represented in a graph data structure. On such a search space, a start node a from which searching starts is defined.
In the illustrated example, users within a secondary acquaintance relationship on the search start node a are illustrated, and, when a user requests searching for users satisfying a specific condition (for example, patent attorney) within the secondary acquaintance relationship, the searching is performed within the illustrated range.
FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating the result of performing searching for a shortest route within the search space of the on-line human network. It is the case in which a user requests searching for the shortest route (the number of nodes on the route is lowest) between node a corresponding to a user and node p corresponding to a designated another user. As a result, the shortest route (a-b-e-j-p) are searched for within the search space of the human network and displayed to the user.
However, in a conventional human network management system, it is only possible to set the acquaintance relationship of 1:1 and is impossible to set various relationship levels (difference in familiarity, difference in reliability depending on parties, and the degree of familiarity or the like), so that it is impossible to provide different pieces of information depending on the difference between relationship levels, and the leak of personal information is worried in the case in which the drain of its own information is concerned upon establishment of relationship with a unreliable party on-line, thereby being reluctant to build a wide on-line human network.
Furthermore, demands, inquiries and requests are concentrated upon a user which is very active on a network and establishes a large number of networks, thus being robbed of the user's time. The corresponding user eventually withdraws from the human network on-line to avoid the problem, so that a problem occurs in that the on-line human network, which has been established with the user as the central figure, collapses.